4 Easy Ways To Get Cooperation From Others

July 13th, 2014 by LaRae Quy

If you're new here, you may want to receive notices of new blog posts via email. Thanks for visiting - LaRae.

Igor was a Russian spy in the United States to steal proprietary economic information. I was the FBI undercover agent assigned to recruit him to work for the United States. My job was to sell Igor on the merits of moving forward with the FBI instead of the KGB.

It was a tough sell. If caught and his perfidy discovered, Igor risked imprisonment, loss of pension, and abandonment by friends and former KGB colleagues.

For 24 years, I made my living by learning how to get cooperation from others. If it wasn’t Russian spies it was supervisors, colleagues, and members of the business community from whom I needed cooperation if I wanted to keep moving ahead in my career.

While the chance of you crossing paths with a foreign spy are minimal, you will encounter investors, financiers, clients, prospects, and other team members you will need to elicit cooperation from if you want to keep your business moving forward.

Here are 4 easy ways you can get cooperation from others:

1. UNDERSTAND THAT COLLABORATION IS NOT OUR FIRST REACTION

Success in most jobs today requires the ability to develop strong collaborative ties with others. Kare Anderson shares a potent reminder in this quote: “Speak sooner to a strong sweet spot of shared interest to strengthen our friendship and generate more opportunities for us.”

The key word is “sooner”, and here is why:

Our emotional limbic brain system is survival driven. It’s sole purpose is to keep us safe by warning of us potential threats in our environment. Its first reaction to the unknown or the uninvited that shows up in our life is—to run away!

In the absence of positive information about an individual you meet, the limbic brain system warns you to distrust that person. This happens subconsciously, before you have time to think about it.

This is why you must move quickly when collaborating with others to alleviate the innate instinct to react negatively. This also explains why icebreakers are so important at workshops when people are meeting each other for the first time.

2. REFLECT WHAT YOU’RE THINKING

The way the brain connects and relates to others is through a series of mirror neurons that light up when we see others perform an action that has specific intent behind it. For example, when we see someone smile in delight, our mirror neurons light up, too, and we smile back. Our brain likes to share the emotion of the person in front of us.

This is why facial expressions are so important. When we see someone experience an emotion, it activates the same circuits in our brain.

If you want a positive response, show it to the other person. Their mirror neurons will register your emotion and their automatic limbic brain response will not be tomove away from you.

Remember, the flight emotional response is always the easiest to arouse, so be careful in what you say and how you say it if you want the other person to collaborate with you.

When we tell stories that have really helped us shape our thinking and way of life, we can have the same effect on others too. According to Uri Hasson, the brains of the person telling a story and those listening to it can synchronize. Not only are the same language processing parts of the brain activated, but the same emotional parts as well. We can plant ideas, thoughts, and emotions in the brain of the listener.

4. USE THESE TWO WORDS TO DISARM ANY DISAGREEMENT—AT LEAST TEMPORARILY!

Marie Forleo gives great advice on how to win an argument or move away from a confrontational situation. Our natural instinct is to become defensive if our point of view is challenged because our limbic brain system is trying to protect us, but Marie suggests we disarm the potential argument by saying two words: “You’re right.”

This immediately neutralizes the situation by showing respect for the other person’s point of view—even if it does not coincide with your own. Once the other individual is disarmed, you can follow up with something like, “I see how you feel (or think), but here is another way to look at the situation…”

Try role-playing with a friend and ask for their input. Disarm a heated argument with those two words, “You’re right.” Ask your friend if you are coming across the way you want.

I have found that mental toughness often has less to do with being tough than with being emotionally savvy about what is going on in the brain of those around me. I have used these 4 techniques to get people to cooperate with me, but there are many others.

This entry was posted
on Sunday, July 13th, 2014 at 7:32 pm and is filed under personal leadership.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

8 Responses to “4 Easy Ways To Get Cooperation From Others”

Excellent insights, LaRae! Powerful and practical. I know many people who say they are terrible collaborators and I think you really make it clear that’s probably the default for many of us. Collaboration, especially positive collaboration, takes conscious effort and relationship building. Relationships are key to our personal leadership and effective collaboration.

LaRae- this is an excellent post, but I had to laugh at #4. Too often I’ve heard the words “You’re right” used in a less than sincere way! So for those who choose to use those two powerful words in the future, make sure you mean what you are saying!

My husband made the same comment you did about #4…he says I say it all the time when we’re arguing

You both hit the nail on the head when you added these words: “It must be sincere.” If we acknowledge the other person has validity in their opinion, it goes a long way toward diffusing a confrontation. But the statement must be genuine.

Loved the post LaRae and your stories always leave me with wanting to know more about your FBI days!

I was drawn to your words: “In the absence of positive information about an individual you meet, the limbic brain system warns you to distrust that person.” It takes a bit for me to trust people who I first meet or work with and maybe this explains why I need evidence for them to earn my trust. But without trust, there will never be any cooperation or connection with that person.

Terri, I think your instincts are right on when it takes a while for you to develop trust. We all need evidence of trustworthiness and even subconsciously our brain is protecting us from trusting everyone we meet.

As you say, trust is essential in relationships so it’s important to find ways to build it. What I didn’t mention in the article is that even though we may trust someone, when they give us clues that they aren’t being authentic, our limbic brain starts niggling us again….

Excellent post. I am a BIG fan of stories. This Saturday I was working with a cohort of MBA students who had been in the same program for over a year. Before launching into their semester team project, I had them move into their teams and do a strategic storytelling workshop. They each had an opportunity to share a strategic story that exemplified a deeply held belief about leadership. They were amazed at how an investment of just over an hour brought them so much closer to the people they had thought the “knew.” Stories create connection every time.